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PASSIONATE LOVE FOR THE LORD

SCRIPTURE READINGS: SONG 3:1-4 OR 2 COR 5:14-17; JN 20: 1-2, 11-18

Do you truly love the Lord? What kind of love relationship do you have with Him? Is your love for Him, tepid, lukewarm or passionate? How often do you think of Him? Does your life revolve around Him? Do you yearn for Him as you would yearn for someone whom you love deeply? For those of us who only have a lackadaisical love for the Lord, He is unlikely to be consciously felt or even thought of, much less yearned for. At most, we try to ritually remember Him briefly at prayers in the morning and just before we sleep. Such a compartmentalized relationship with God cannot be love.

Why do we not have a passionate love for Christ? It is because we love with our minds rather than with our hearts. We may find Him, His teachings, and His values fascinating, but our hearts are unmoved. Furthermore, we delude ourselves into believing that we love Him just because we are able to produce fruits of love in our service to the Church, our generosity to the poor and our devotion to spiritual exercises. The irony is that such intended acts of love for God can be means of consolation to make us feel good about ourselves, to justify ourselves before Him and to receive appreciation from others.

The truth is that if we love God at all, our love must be a passionate love. Such a passionate love of course does not exclude knowledge of the one we love, or the works of love. On the contrary, these must be included otherwise it would be a deficient love. However, mere intellectual faith or good actions if not prompted by a passionate love for Him would be deprived of power and efficacy. Emotions and especially feelings are part of the whole experience of love.

This is where Mary Magdalene, whose feast we celebrate today, can teach us how to love passionately. In fact, this is where she stands out from the rest of the disciples and apostles. Her passionate love for Jesus is brought out in the scripture readings. What better way to express her love for Christ than for the Church to permit the use of the Book of the Song of Songs to evoke in us the sentiments of Mary Magdalene in her love for Christ. Like a lover in search of her beloved in the Song of Songs, Mary Magdalene went in search of Christ on Easter Sunday morning.

So what kind of love could be appropriately classified as passionate love? It must firstly be a love of intimacy. Mary was intimately in union with Jesus. Her whole life was focused on loving Jesus. She lived for Jesus and her life was consecrated to Him and for His service. The gospel tells us that she and the other women followed Jesus in His ministry and attended to His needs out of their own resources.

Secondly, it must a yearning love. Mary was always thinking of Jesus. The first reading describes this kind of love: “On my bed, at night, I sought him whom my heart loves. I sought but did not find him. So I will rise and go through the City; in the streets and the squares I will seek him whom my heart loves.” When we love someone, we will always yearn for the presence of that person, desiring to spend all our time with him or her, being one in mind and heart. So too, when we are in love with God, we would also long to be with Him at all times.

Thirdly, it must be a love of passion. This must however be rightly understood. The love of passion must be distinguished in two ways, namely, feelings and suffering. Mary Magdalene did not simply have a sentimental love for Jesus. She expressed her love by her desire to suffer with Jesus. The gospel recounted her faithful and courageous love for Him when she stood at the foot of the cross with Mary, the mother of our Lord and St John, whilst the others abandoned Him. So her passionate love was beyond feelings. She was ready to suffer the shame of the cross with Jesus, even remaining behind with the women to complete His burial by anointing His Body on Easter morning. Such a love gave her the grace to be the first to see the Risen Lord, even before the apostles.

Fourthly, her passionate love is demonstrated in her evangelical outlook as well. She did not keep Jesus for herself. Her love for Jesus was not a selfish and self-centered love. On the contrary, she wanted to share Jesus with as many as possible. Not only did she help Jesus in His earthly ministry, but after encountering the Risen Lord, she went to announce to the apostles even though they were slow in believing. So much so the Byzantine Liturgy celebrates Mary Magdalene as “the apostle to the Apostles.” She taught us that the basis of apostleship and discipleship is rooted in a passionate love for Him.

Yet there is a warning as well. We must be careful not to reduce love into mere sentimentalism. This is where Jesus reminded her when He said, “Do not cling to me, because I have not yet ascended to my Father. But go and find the brothers, and tell them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Love must bring about a real change in our lives. It must be a transforming love. This was certainly the case for Mary Magdalene. She was transformed by Christ’s love, for she had seven demons cast out from her (Mk 16:9). Rightly, the words of St Paul applies to her when he wrote, “From now onwards, therefore, we do not judge anyone by the standards of the flesh. Even if we did once know Christ in the flesh, that is not how we know him now. And for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here.”

What then is the foundation of such a passionate love? In the optional reading of today’s mass taken from 2 Cor 5:14, St Paul shares the source of his zealous ministry. He wrote, “The love of Christ overwhelms us.” If Paul too was passionate about Christ and the gospel, it was because of the love of Christ he experienced just as Mary Magdalene did. Truly, we must first be loved by Christ before we can find the passion to love likewise. Only with this love was St Paul able to say, “when we reflect that if one man has died for all, then all men should be dead; and the reason he died for all was so that living men should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to life for them.”

It is true that a passionate love entails the mind, heart and action. Isn’t this what is commanded in the scriptures and affirmed by Jesus when He said, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.”? But it is significant that such a love begins with the heart (affective love), then the mind (intellectual faith) which is then expressed in actions (strength). Thus, St Teresa of Avila says, “Prayer is to think less and love more.”

So have you fallen in love with Jesus? Do you want the liberating, healing and empowering experience of His love? We can have the experience of encountering the Risen Lord only if we make ourselves available to Him. Unfortunately, like Mary Magdalene, we allow our sorrows; pains and fears to hinder us from recognizing His presence. We dare not take the risk like Mary Magdalene to seek Jesus, even if it were at the tomb. In the Church, there are many avenues; programs and retreats that offer you a personal experience of the love of Jesus. But are you receptive and courageous enough to seize the opportunity to open your heart to His love? He is our beloved, waiting for us to respond to His love.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh